Spilled Coffee and Shoddy Mechanics
by Mr. War
Summary: Simmons was always good at fixing machines. Little did he know that he could also mend broken souls. First attempt on writing the new pairing Simmons x Carolina. This pairing is interesting. :3


**What is this? I've written something with Carolina in it and she ****_isn't _****all depressed because York is dead?!**

**First attempt at the new, cute couple that should at least gain some interest.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own RVB or it's characters. Just the story.**

**Enjoy! X3**

* * *

It had been almost two weeks since Carolina had arrived mysteriously in Blood Gulch and Simmons had never seen her far from Blue Base, so the sight of her storming across the canyon was an unexpected one.

Simmons quickly ducked into the shadows in the doorway of Red Base, not wanting to be seen as he tried to figure out why she was there. He watched as she hurled her helmet on the ground and in a huff collapsed against a tree. Angrily, she blew her bangs out of her face and glared at the sky.

For the entire time Carolina had been here, Simmons had yet to work up the courage to actually talk to her. Maybe he could do it now.

No one else was around. He could hear Donut down below, singing off key to Beyonce as he made some kind of girly coffee. Sarge was somewhere cleaning his shotgun, and he was pretty sure that Grif was with Dount.

He could just casually stroll up and ask her what she was doing.

Girls liked it when you asked them questions, didn't they? Or was it that they didn't like being asked questions, he could never remember. He really was terrible with these kinds of things. Maybe talking to her wasn't such a good idea. If he went out there he was sure to mess something up.

"Spying are we Simmons?"

Simmons jumped to hear Grif's voice so close in his ear. Whirling around he saw Grif leaning against the wall, a lazy smirk plastered across his face.

"Spying?" he blubbered. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"I mean hiding in the dark while you watch that crazy bitch over there," Grif nodded in Carolina's direction.

"I wasn't- I was just. Oh, go away Grif!" Simmons huffed in defeat.

"Whatever Simmons," Grif said, clearly unconvinced. He shrugged himself off the wall and turned to walk back into the base. "I only came out to say Donut was looking for you."

With one last, furtive, glance outside Simmons turned and followed Grif inside.

Just outside of the kitchen he could hear Donut calling for him.

"Oh Simmons!" He trilled. "It's ready."

Apprehensively Simmons stepped into the kitchen half expecting to see Donut wearing a flowered apron. To his relief the young private was wearing his equally manly pink amour. Donut bustled over, two cups of steaming coffee in his hands, both topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

He shoved both cups in Simmons hands. "Why don't you bring one of these out to Carolina?" Donut said, with a conspiratorial wink.

"What? No!" Simmons hastily tried to hand one of the cups back to Donut. Horrible scenes of him stuttering as he tried to offer coffee to Carolina played out in his head, each of them ending with him fleeing back to Red Base in humiliation. "I'm not bringing this to her. No way."

"Now, Simmons," Donut chided with his hands on his hips, eerily reminding Simmons of his mother. "There was extra so there's no point in wasting."

"Then you take it to her," Simmons said, trying again to unsuccessfully return one of the mugs to Donut. "I can't!"

"Ooo, Simmons is scared," Grif teased.

"I am not Grif," Simmons snapped, his face reddening regardless of his words.

"Are too," Grif snorted in reply. "You're scared to talk with her because she's a _girl_."

"Oh, dealing with girls isn't something to be afraid of," Donut chirped. "You've just got to get your head in the right place and everything goes just fine."

"Donut," Simmons and Grif groaned in unison.

"Come on, you'll see it's not that hard." Completely oblivious to his distress Donut skipped over and bustled Simmons out of the kitchen and down the hall. Despite his protests Simmons found himself pushed out into the glaring sun of the canyon.

"Go on now Simmons," Donut encouraged from the safety of the shaded doorway. "Me and Grif will be downstairs and you can tell us all about it once you're done." He then disappeared further into the base.

Not really knowing what he was doing Simmons slowly approached Carolina where she was leaning against the same tree he'd seen her beside earlier.

He expected the crunch of his footsteps on the ground to alert her to his presence, but she didn't turn. Uncertainly he cleared his throat, but still no response. Steeling his nerves he called, "Carolina."

In a flash she whirled on him, her eyes ablaze. "What?" she shouted, scattering birds from the surrounding trees, and sending Simmons stumbling back a few paces.

Simmons cowered as she prowled towards him with all the controlled fierceness of a lioness. "What do you want? Are you here to hit on me? What about to ask me to be your new best friend? Or do you have any other pointless questions you'd like to ask?"

Too shocked and scared to form a coherent sentence Simmons sputtered. "S-sorry. What? No- coffee." He held out the mug to spare himself the need of putting words together properly.

"Just leave me alone! Can't I have five minutes away from all of your incompetence?" She raised her arms in exasperation.

"S-sorry. Th-thought you might like s-something to drink," Simmons raised the mugs up, as if to shield himself from her unexpected rage. "Try-trying to be nice."

This was going about as well as Simmons had imagined, and he was just waiting for the part where he fled back to the safety of the base.

"Something nice would be leaving me alone!" Carolina half shouted at him. When he just stood there, frozen by fear, she added, "Go away would you!" and shoved him back toward Red Base.

As Simmons tripped over his feet one of the mugs of coffee flew out of his hand, spraying its contents all over his arm. As if this whole thing hadn't been going bad enough, without warning Simmons' arm started jerking back and forth spasmodically.

"What is going on with your arm?" Carolina, who had taken a step back to avoid being hit, no longer looked so angry. Instead she eyed the flailing limb with a mix of curiosity, confusion and maybe a bit of fright.

Distracted by his flailing arm, Simmons didn't hear the question. Instead he held out the mug and hesitantly asked. "Could you hold this for a sec? I need to take a look at this."

To his relief, he did not set her off shouting again, and she quietly took the mug from him.

Doing his best to pin his arm to his chest while it flailed and jerked, Simmons wrenched off the armour covering his arm to reveal a mass of metal and wiring. The piece of machinery was sparking and sputtering.

Simmons groaned as he assessed the damage to the circuitry. Across from him Carolina edged closer, trying to get a better look.

"What is that?" She asked, her earlier hostility now completely gone, leaving only curiosity.

"Oh yeah, I'm part cyborg," Simmons replied distractedly, no longer nervous as his attention was engrossed by the machinery as he tried to deduce how to fix it. "It's kind of a long story."

Producing a tiny screwdriver out of seemingly nowhere Simmons began to tinker with the wiring. As he worked he said off-handedly, "Actually I guess it's not that long. Grif almost died so Sarge made a meat puzzle out of the two of us, replacing anything I gave up to Grif with whatever scrap metal he had lying around."

"It actually looks rather sophisticated," Carolina murmured, almost grudgingly, as if she didn't believe the Simulation soldiers could be capable of such mechanics. "I mean, your Sergeant built a Spanish speaking robot, and hasn't been able to fix it yet."

"Yeah, we are rather incompetent," Simmons shrugged the one shoulder he had control of. "I've actually been doing a lot of improvements on it. You should have seen how Sarge had me before. I started off with a fax machine in my ass."

He continued to talk as he removed a fried wire. This finally stopped the jerking of his arm, but now it hung loose at his side, completely useless. "It still needs work though. Little things will set it off sometimes. Like if I point with my left hand, and scratch my head at the same time with my other hand, my bowels release. Took a few unfortunate tries before I realized what set if off, but I still haven't been able to fix it."

The sound of a bubbly laugh caused him to glance up from his work. Carolina had her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back more laughter.

This caused Simmons to realize two things.

First that he'd never heard Carolina laugh before. Not only was its occurrence unexpected, but it didn't fit with the cold Freelancer he'd taken her to be. It was too lighthearted and giddy, much more becoming of a high school girl gossiping about boys with her friends, than the woman he knew could kill him with just her hands.

Second, that he'd just talked to her about his bowels releasing. Mortified, he became instantly flustered again.

"I really just said that didn't I?" He said, incredibly thankful for the helmet that covered the intense blush he felt creeping up his face. "People don't normally talk about their bowels releasing do they? I don't really know what people normally say to other people. I do my best to avoid them."

Simmons would have continued babbling mindlessly if Carolina hadn't stopped him. "It's okay, I've heard worse." Simmons thought he might have actually seen the faintest of smiles on her lips, but it was gone before he could be sure.

In the silence that followed, with her hostility gone, Carolina finally took a sip of the coffee that had brought Simmons outside in the first place. An appreciative look came into her eyes. "This tastes really good."

Simmons nodded, relaxed enough again to turn back to his arm, which though was no longer jerking violently was still sparking. "Donut made it."

"He's a little...different isn't he?" She asked delicately. "Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I'm right, aren't I?"

Simmons chuckled. "What was your first hint? His "lightish red" armour?"

Taking another sip of the coffee Carolina replied, "That, and the fact that I could hear him singing 'Single Ladies' from out here."

Simmons tinkered away through a companionable silence until he finally gathered the courage to ask, "So, what were you doing out here anyway."

Carolina sighed loudly, and from a quick look up at her face Simmons could see he'd angered her again. "I thought it was obvious that I just wanted to be alone, and away from all of the insane questions you idiots are always asking."

Simmons winced from the sting of her words. "Sorry," he said meekly.

Carolina sighed again, but this time in a defeated manner, not angry. "Don't be. It seems like I snap at nothing these days," she smiled wanly. "I just came out here to get some time alone to think."

"It really wasn't my business anyway," he replied apologetically.

With a final clink and a twist of his screwdriver Simmons grinned as his arm whirred back into working order.

"How about we just forget it," Carolina relented. She held her hand out to him as a sign of peace. "Want to test if that arm's in working order?"

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Simmons asked playfully, shaking her hand nonetheless. The motion of his arm was smooth, with no hint of the violent jerking it had been displaying earlier. "I'm a Red, and as Sarge would say you're a dirty Blue."

"Am I a Blue?" She asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, I assumed you were," Simmons felt a blush creeping up his face again. Without his arm to distract him he was realizing that he was actually talking to a girl and was remembering how uncomfortable he was around them. "I mean you spend all of your time over at Blue Base, and you have blue armour. Then again, you do have pretty red hair so you could pass as a Red."

Simmons wasn't sure if he meant 'pretty' as in her hair was very red, or that it was beautiful. After a second's thought, and seeing how the deep rouge strands framed her intense face, he decided it was both.

"To be honest, I don't think I'm either. I don't belong here," Carolina replied quietly hiding a faint blush from the comment.

"What do you mean?" Simmons asked. "We're the biggest bunch of misfits around. There's no one who doesn't fit in here."

Carolina took a long look around the canyon before she answered him with a question of her own. "Simmons, have you ever wondered why you're here?"

"That's practically this place's motto," Simmons chuckled.

"Well, I know why I'm here," she said. "I've lost everything, my friends, my future, myself. The only thing I have left is the chance to take everything away from the one who ruined my life." Her words were laced with bitterness and she turned away briefly, lost in her own thoughts of the past and the future she had lost.

"And then what?" Simmons prompted, surprised by his own forwardness.

She glanced up at him, a look of confusion in her eyes. "What do you mean?" She asked, her voice betraying how unbalanced she had become by the harmless question.

"I mean what are you going to do after you find the Director," Simmons responded. "After your revenge."

"I-I never think past seeing him dead," Carolina replied, but there was something strange in her voice. Something that gave Simmons a sense of foreboding.

"In that case, maybe you'd consider coming back here," Simmons suggested quietly. "You'd always be welcome."

She snorted, reasserting herself as the calm, assured Freelancer Simmons was more accustomed to seeing. Whatever that strange note in her voice had been, it was now gone as she said, "I don't think your Sergeant would want you to be saying that to a 'dirty blue'."

"But I want to say it." Later Simmons would decide that someone else must have been the one talking. He would never had said something like that, but for the first time in his life, he felt like he was saying the right thing to a girl.

Carolina eyes seemed to search his face, which he knew was impossible as it was hidden behind his visor. Yet he suddenly felt more exposed than he ever had in his life. Secretly, he hoped that whatever it was she was searching for she found.

Suddenly she looked away a strange wash of emotions covering her face. He got a glimpse of pain, confusion and maybe even a hint of guilt before she resolved her face into an emotionless mask.

"I should get back to Blue Base," she said quietly, still not looking back at him."Who knows what trouble they've gotten into without me there to hold their hands."

"Are we really that bad?" Simmons asked.

"No," she finally looked back up at him. "I guess you're not that bad."

She held up the now forgotten mug of coffee. "Thanks Simmons." A soft, sincere smile crossed her as she handed the mug to him. "For everything."

As if embarrassed by the act of emotion she turned away quickly, leaving Simmons to wave awkwardly at her as she left.

"Bye," he whispered to her receding form, and then turned to go back to his own base, trying to muddle over what exactly had just happened. Whatever it was he decided he had Donut's coffee and Sarge's shoddy mechanics to thank for it.

* * *

Carolina walked back to Blue Base her head roiling with thoughts and emotions she shouldn't be having. She had gone out there to calm her troubled mind and to figure things out, but she'd come back even more of a mess than before.

Why did he have to pry? Why did he have to bring up things she'd rather not think about?

Ever since she had resolved herself to finding and killing the Director she'd had a feeling deep in her bones that the mission would take her life. She had resigned herself to this fact long ago and the thought hadn't bothered her much since. After all, as she'd told Simmons she had already lost everything.

Project Freelancer had twisted her into a grotesque wraith of her former self. It had stolen any hope of the future she'd once dreamed of. It had taken the lives of her friends and all those she'd cared about. It would have been almost fitting if it took her as well.

But then Simmons had to come out with that gourmet coffee of his, and given her the one thing she hadn't felt in so long. Hope.

Hope that someday she might have somewhere to go. Somewhere to call home. Somewhere, that if she did make it through her mission, she could be alive again.

She stopped for a moment to glance around the near empty canyon the Reds and Blues seemed to detest so much. As she took in the peaceful breeze that stirred a calming rustle from the leaves of the surrounding trees, she sighed away her weariness.

She on the contrary realized that she loved the place. The quietness, the peacefulness, the boringness the Simulation soldiers would say, soothed her ragged soul in ways she hadn't imagined possible after the tumultuous storm her life had been in Project Freelancer. Maybe this was a place where she could belong.

And maybe, just maybe she thought, as she glanced back at the retreating maroon soldier, there were still people in her life worth living for.

**A/N: D'awwww So cute and fluffy! X3 Please consider this pairing, I see a lot of potential for Simmons x Carolina**

**And please leave me reviews even if you're a guest please send me your opinions. :3  
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